Lisa Harding and I meet in a city centre park on a day so inclement that we battle bend-double wind, snow and some hail as we walk and talk. Somehow, the elemental weather feels fitting for a discussion of Lisa's new novel, Bright Burning Things, which features a protagonist, Sonya, so ferocious that she leaps straight off the page and into the imagination, in a story of motherhood, addiction, love, loss and the delicate dawn of hope, that is viscerally told and beautifully written.